Flashdance — The Musical hasn’t reached Broadway yet, and it might still receive the
typically harsh verdicts that New York critics mete out to retro musicals based on lesser
films.

But its enjoyable national tour, which opened last night to applause at the Palace Theatre,
delivers more catchy songs and deeper characterizations than one might expect from a new show with
this particular pop-cultural provenance.

It’s not a great musical, by any means, and certainly not innovative. Still, this aspirational
story about female empowerment is not bad — and a marked improvement over
The Wedding Singer, Footloose and other 1980s-movie-inspired musicals that have come and
gone without leaving much of a trace.

Tom Hedley and Robert Cary have done a nice job adapting the dramatically thin 1983 film to the
stage, evoking a richer romantic relationship at its core and a more convincing chemistry among the
major characters.

The score by composer-lyricist Robbie Roth and author-lyricist Cary nicely complements the five
songs made famous by the film and occasionally rivals them in energy or catchy melody.

Jillian Mueller dances wonderfully and sings pretty well as Alex Owens, who welds by day at a
steel mill and dances by night at a strip club. She fulfills the demands of her iconic final dance,
too.

Her voice is nice enough, combined with her acting, to give a hopeful sheen to
It’s All in Reach and a heartfelt wisdom to
Let Go.

Corey Mach is sweet and human enough, if rather one-dimensional, as Nick Hurley, the steel-mill
boss/heir who takes a fancy to Alex and tries to date her and help her.

Mueller blends beautifully with Mach in
Dealbreaker, Here and Now and
Hang On — all duets with enough emotional power to rival
What a Feeling, which onstage, as on film, helps bring the story to an exhilarating
close.

Solid support — and some welcome comic relief — comes from David R. Gordon as aspiring stand-up
comedian Jimmy, Ginna Claire Mason as sweet but insecure Gloria (at her winsome best in the song
Remember Me), Dequina Moore’s sassy Kiki (who struts her stuff in
Manhunt) and Alison Ewing’s sexy Tess (who belts out
I Love Rock ’n’ Roll like she means it).

Above all,
Flashdance is a fun and sometimes-thrilling dance musical that works best when it
moves.

Choreographer-director Sergio Trujillo ensures a fluid staging that nods to the era that gave
birth to MTV videos without seeming dated.

Sliding panels and Howell Binkley’s shifting lights extend the propulsive energy of a refreshing
variety of dance styles, from ballet and jazz to burlesque and the street.

Paul Tazewell’s costumes range from the realistic to the parodic, the latter especially
effective in boosting the energy and comedy in the strip-club numbers.

The eight-member pit orchestra, led by conductor-keyboardist Nicholas Williams, gives
Maniac, the other film favorites and the many effective new songs the smooth veneer and
raucous confidence of Top 40 pop-rock hits.

A few lyrics get lost amid the vocalizations and orchestrations, but with obvious lyrics such as
“life is a dance,” you don’t need to hear much to get the gist of it.

Overall, this two-act musical — which kicks off the 2013-14 season of Broadway in Columbus – is
faithful enough to its core material to enlist the affections of aging boomers and fresh enough to
engage younger generations.